Benefits of Sales Automation Software for Manufacturing Companies

Sales automation software can greatly benefit your business. In this article, you’ll learn how the core benefits work!

Automating sales is essential if you want to streamline processes in your company. The lack of sales automation is detrimental in several ways. Firstly, it requires a larger number of resources invested into a sales team. The number of experts on the market is limited: thus, there’s a risk of an expertise shortage. Secondly, the lack of software in the sales process is dangerous in one more way: it elevates the number of errors, as all quality evaluations are done by humans. Hence, the benefits of sales automation software for manufacturers are too significant to ignore. In this article, we’ll clearly outline them all to show you why it’s necessary to invest in this sector.

What Does Sales Automation Software Stand For?

Sales automation software, as its title implies, is the software that is used to automate the selling process for various companies. In this respect, sales automation is flexible: tools within it allow for the automating of all processes or partial automation. On the one hand, you can automate some of the processes in your firm through modern sales automation tools. For example, it’s possible to automate follow-ups or the ordering process.

On the other hand, one can use those frameworks for the full automation of certain sales. Let’s imagine that you have a product that doesn’t require much customization and is typically ordered by a similar set of customers. In those cases, there’s no need to confirm anything. The best option is to automate such processes and focus the manual tasks on the actual shipping of the products. All in all, the set of benefits provided by this technology is likely to be high, just according to the description.

Core Benefits of Sales Automation Software

Now, let’s dive into the core advantages of the presented industrial sales automation technology for modern manufacturing companies. There are eight major advantages to consider in the current conditions:

1. Cost reductions

The first reason to use the presented technology is the ability to reduce costs per user during the sales process without undermining the overall customer experience. Sales automation software is primarily notable for its ability to reduce the reliance on human labor. With this technology, a workforce of the same size can handle many more requests than in the past. Consequently, the presented innovation is a perfect framework for reducing costs expended on the sales process in your firm.

2. Improved efficiency

Another important element of the presented technology is its ability to generally improve the efficiency of processing. In the traditional systems, a sales professional has to personally reach all customers in order to confirm orders. During the high-load periods, this may mean that many individuals would not get sufficient attention fast. In the world of manufacturing, this is a negative factor for customer relationships. Buyers of manufacturing goods are highly likely to need them urgently (for instance, to fix some car within a deadline).

In this light, the core way to achieve customer satisfaction is to maximize response speed. Before sales automation software, this was possible only with the help of large workforces or prioritization for the most promising customers. Today, sales automation software solves this challenge once and for all by allowing a small workforce to handle an endless stream of administrative tasks fast. After all, automation removes all typical cases from the order pool. All that is left for the experts in the sales departments is to finalize deals for customers with more complex requirements.

3. Data-based decision-making

Traditional sales systems based on human interactions suffer from the issue of tacit information, as economists call it. What is tacit information? It’s the notion that employees who are lower in the hierarchy typically fail to share vital data necessary for decision-making due to its scope, disrupting their ability to steer large companies. Sales automation software solves this problem once and for all. It collects a lot of information in automatic mode and, more importantly, forces many employees to record information within the relevant systems. In this way, the management gets an opportunity to gather big data from repetitive tasks. All this is vital for high-quality decision-making, as a few events escape the control of management with the use of those systems.

4. Boosted customer engagement

Another important aspect to consider when it comes to the advantages of sales automation software for the manufacturing sector is undoubtedly the ability to boost customer engagement. What do we mean by that? Slow response times are the core problem of traditional sales systems. Consequently, many customers may be lost simply because they don’t get a response to their requests on time. Novel tools for automating sales tasks remove this challenge once and for all. Automation allows one to accelerate the ordering process for various wares. As a result, the likelihood of a new customer ordering something from your manufacturing business grows to a great degree.

5. Improved customer personalization

In traditional sales systems, the managers have to oversee the entire sales process. This means they’re supposed to work with a large number of typical cases that don’t offer any unique value either to the customers or to the involved businesses. Ultimately, such a situation leads to low customer personalization: there’s simply no time for customizing every purchase. In turn, sales automation software removes this problem once and for all. It automates the typical cases and allows dedicating your in-house team of sales specialists to the most complex tasks. Therefore, individuals who want a simple service can get it through automated tools. Simultaneously, those who want customization receive an opportunity to communicate with staff at your company, maximizing the benefits of your operations.

6. Improved CX

Customer experience is also an aspect that is likely to improve with the help of those systems. Above all, this is possible because modern automation tools remove the reliance on human communication during the order process. What does this mean in practice? In practice, this means that you can provide more capabilities for the purchase process. For example, it’s now possible to buy something through a site or a mobile app. Sales automation software makes such activities easy to manage, reducing pressure on the average workforce. Hence, the presented systems boost the customer experience by, above all, allowing the customers to choose the best approach to buying certain wares.

7. Improving standards

A strong aspect of sales automation software is undoubtedly its capability to improve standards for modern sales businesses. How exactly does this occur? Above all, through the focus on higher efficiency of sales and, more importantly, an upgraded approach to customer choice. On the one hand, those systems make selling faster, improving the customer experience for time-pressed customers. On the other hand, these systems offer multiple forms of communication for the relevant users. In this way, every user receives an opportunity to use the buying pathway that fits them above all.

8. The ability to scale

Lastly, all sales automation systems are capable of improving scaling. What do we mean by that? A traditional system of sales requires you to expand the workforce linearly according to the growing sales productivity. In short, the more customers you have, the more people are necessary in a similar ratio. Sales automation systems remove this linear relationship through systems such as reminders. Users can manage millions of customers with a relatively small workforce through the use of those systems, as long as they perform proper configuration. The idea here is simple: most orders for the relevant companies don’t require customization. Automation allows removing up to 90% of the order pipeline. The sales team then has to focus only on the customers who want some customized contracts with your firm.

Types of Sales Automation Software

There are multiple types of sales automation software that can assist in your marketing campaign. Our recommendation is to combine several types of those frameworks to maximize their positive effects:

Customer Relationship Management

CRM systems are among the most popular sales automation frameworks. What’s the core goal of CRM frameworks? They allow you to automate the collection of certain information about customers or streamline its entry. Then, it’s possible to use those systems to analyze your customer lists and form a clear sales cycle based on the Big Data information. All in all, the idea behind those frameworks is to combine information collection with analytical tools and various types of reminders.

Online catalogs

One more technology that is likely to be highly helpful for the majority of manufacturing companies is undoubtedly that of online catalogs. What does this technology entail? It involves the usage of websites that offer a full insight into your products. In short, you get an opportunity to showcase all your wares through such systems. They act as a vital step in the sales funnel, allowing the customers to review your core products without involving the sales personnel in the entire review process. This is a major labor-saving technology, which has been in use since the middle of the 1990s. Every manufacturing company that has numerous potential customers should undoubtedly strive to use this technology.

Configuration tools

If your products are customizable, a good idea is to also add configuration tools. Let’s imagine that you’re manufacturing and selling laptops. One can create several form factors for a certain model, with different technologies for RAM or video cards. If you formalize properly, it’s easy to create a configuration tool where the customer would choose from customization options and then arrive at a model that suits them best. In our opinion, strong configuration tools should be a major business objective for any firm that offers products with multiple types of possible configurations.

CPQ

When you have many products or a significant amount of customization for them, a major difficulty may appear during the price calculation process. In short, it’s possible to simply make an error when you create price quotes. CPQ tools help monitor the prices of your products and then create clear quotes for them. This approach perfectly highlights the benefits of sales automation in manufacturing. With such systems, the goal of your employees is to only double-check if there are no errors in the quantities of products ordered by a customer.

B2B tools

Manufacturing companies are often engaged in B2B sales. In short, they work with a small number of business partners rather than an extensive group of diverging small-scale customers. In this light, B2B tools are an important sales automation solution. They allow you to streamline contract establishment between businesses. For example, one can minimize resource expenditures on contract creation.

Generative AI assistants

Generative AI, in our opinion, is going to offer a revolution in sales automation solutions. How exactly? This technology can automate the majority of customization cases due to its ability to offer realistic answers to human requests. Now, the need for a customization-oriented workforce is likely to be even lower since the involved technologies allow automation of those tasks, too. GenAI will enable your teams to focus on the largest customers, who may need customization on genuinely extensive levels.

Analytical dashboards

One more technology that is highly useful for sales automation software is dashboards. You can use those overview platforms in order to get advanced insights into customer behavior. Those systems are highly vital because they allow you to have a bird’s-eye view of your sales. It’s often difficult to spot certain trends when you’re “on the ground”. However, they may become much more obvious if you focus on the bigger picture with the help of industrial automation software.

Lead algorithms

Sales systems can also benefit from lead-oriented algorithms. These are systems that allow you to understand how to advertise your company in order to get the largest number of leads. The core goal of those systems is to review customer demand and clearly outline the best fields of investment. Proper advertisement, in turn, offers a perfect opportunity for generating leads of various kinds.

Engagement platforms

These are frameworks that streamline the communication process with various customers. In them, you can combine emails, chats, and other communication methods to maximize value for your company. They also involve scheduling systems to make it easier to communicate with the customers according to proper deadlines. 

Inventory management

Lastly, a major aspect of automating sales is actually understanding the scope of your inventory. In this regard, we recommend using an industrial automation system in the form of inventory management software. These are systems that can track all your core assets and inform your team about the availability of certain products. Such systems are vital for the sales process because they enable your employees to collect information about wares without checking for certain products individually.

Key Questions You Can Ask While Choosing a Sales Automation System

Choosing the right sales automation system is a complex task. Here are several questions that can assist you during the relevant process:

• Which sales procedures can be automated by the software?
• What is the degree of integration with existing tools and data sources?
• Does it provide powerful reporting and analytics capabilities?
• Is the interface user-friendly and intuitive?
• How can I customize and automate workflows?
• What training, help, and resources are there?
• How does the pricing model work for you?

In Conclusion

To summarize, sales automation systems are among the most powerful ways to automate your sales departments. Industrial sales automation is possible only if you use modern, advanced systems of the type that we’ve described. Do we ultimately recommend those systems? If you work with a large number of customers, then the answer is a resounding yes. It’s also positive if you have to engage in a significant degree of customization within your business. In case you need software development for the manufacturing industry, don’t hesitate to address our company, Keenethics.